Former superintendent of Centinela Valley Unified School District Jose Fernandez appears in Torrance Superior Court for arraignment charged with public corruption. Photo by Brad Graverson/SCNG/The Daily Breeze/09-01-17.

As it always seems to be year after year, death was a major story in the South Bay and Harbor Area in 2017 — from the tragic shooting in Las Vegas that claimed four lives of local residents at a festival concert, to the suicide of musician Chester Bennington to the highway death of a beloved high school baseball star.

Even the arrest of a Palos Verdes High School senior stemmed from a murder allegedly committed by a South Los Angeles gang he inexplicably had joined.

But 2017 also was marked by new beginnings. The Los Angeles Chargers put down temporary stakes in Carson as the team awaits its multibillion-dollar stadium in nearby Inglewood, Goodyear brought its next-generation blimp to the South Bay and SpaceX CEO started tunneling beneath Hawthorne as he pursues a futuristic underground transportation network for Los Angeles.

Perhaps as much an ending as a beginning, merchants and restaurateurs at iconic Ports O’ Call in San Pedro protested eviction notices as developers prepare for work on the community’s new San Pedro Public Market.

Elsewhere in the South Bay in 2017, fired Centinela Valley schools Superintendent Jose Fernandez was arrested and charged with public corruption for allegedly bilking the district out of millions of dollars, a scandal unearthed by the Daily Breeze in a series of articles that earned a Pulitzer Prize.

And in a story that mixed politics with the ire of commuters, a recall campaign was launched against a Los Angeles city councilman who became the poster child for an ill-conceived plan to eliminate traffic lanes on several Westside roadways in the name of public safety.

These are the Top 10 stories of 2017 in the South Bay and Harbor Area:

During the summer, Musk purchased a used tunnel-boring machine from a Bay Area Metro project and completed a tunnel entrance in the parking lot. He secured enthusiastic approval from Hawthorne leaders to dig the 2-mile electric-vehicle test tunnel.

In the months that followed, his newly formed Boring Co. began digging a second East Coast tunnel from Baltimore to Washington, D.C.

Now, Los Angeles city officials are considering a plan for The Boring Co. to dig a massive three-dimensional network of tunnels called The Loop along the Los Angeles coastline from the San Fernando Valley to Long Beach. The company also is seeking to build an express train from downtown Chicago to Chicago O’Hare.

The Boring Co. has developed an automated system that transports passenger pods on top of an electric skate attached to the tunnel’s track. The skates can move autonomously through the system at speeds up to 150 mph, and will drop off passengers via side tunnels that can be unloaded onto a surface parking space.

South High School shortstop Jesse Esphorst

Crash claims star Torrance athlete

About 2,000 people attended funeral services in March for 16-year-old South High School shortstop Jesse Esphorst Jr., whose death in a traffic collision shocked and saddened the South Bay and Harbor Area high school athletics and Little League communities.

Just hours after hitting a home run for his team in a lopsided victory March 16, Jesse was with his father when two cars slammed into their minivan at Crenshaw Boulevard and Crest Road in Torrance. Jesse’s father, also named Jesse, was seriously injured.

In a recorded 911 call, Tung Ming, 22, of Rancho Palos Verdes, told a dispatcher that he was chasing another driver who fled after they collided in Rolling Hills Estates. Police said both Ming and Darryl Leander Hicks Jr., 29, of Los Angeles were north on Crenshaw when they ran a red light at Crest Road, where Jesse’s father was making a left turn. Hicks drove away and abandoned his car, but was later arrested.

Ming and Hicks have each pleaded not guilty to vehicular manslaughter charges. Hicks also faces hit-and-run allegations. Each was ordered in October to stand trial, which is expected to come in 2018.

A curbside memorial at the Palos Verdes Estates home of Chester Bennington, lead singer of band Linkin Park, who committed suicide July 20. Photo by Brad Graverson/SCNG/07-20-17

Chester Bennington takes own life

Rock music fans lost Linkin Park’s energetic frontman Chester Bennington when he took his own life July 20 at his house on Via Victoria in Palos Verdes Estates. The singer had struggled for years with addiction and depression, something he expressed in his songs.

“We’re trying to remind ourselves that the demons who took you away from us were always part of the deal,” Bennington’s band mates, Mike Shinoda, Brad Delson, Dave Farrell, Joe Hahn and Rob Bourdon, wrote in a letter after his death. “After all, it was the way you sang about those demons that made everyone fall in love with you in the first place. You fearlessly put them on display, and, in doing so, brought us together and taught us to be more human. You had the biggest heart, and managed to wear it on your sleeve.”

Bennington kept a quiet existence In Palos Verdes Estates as a husband and father who cared for his kids and once filled his yard with snow so they could enjoy a white Christmas.

Fans placed flowers, candles and notes on a temporary fence put up outside Bennington’s home in his memory. Bennington had recently moved into the house.

Linkin Park and other musicians held a public memorial at the Hollywood Bowl in October.

Chargers land in the South Bay at cozy StubHub Center

The former San Diego Chargers arrived in Carson in August to play in the Los Angeles area for the first time in 57 years.

The team will remain at the StubHub Center, home to Major League Soccer’s LA Galaxy, until its new $2.6 billion shared home with the Los Angeles Rams opens in Inglewood in 2020. The 2022 Super Bowl will be held there.

After a dismal start to the season, the team rallied to become a strong contender for the playoffs.

The temporary stay is a boon for Carson officials, who are working to make the city more attractive to visitors.

The Los Angeles Chargers drew fans from around the country to the relatively small, 30,000-seat venue owned by Anschutz Entertainment Group. The company upgraded security procedures at the venue, and invested in a new 5,100-square-foot LED screen, added restaurants, improved locker room facilities, and more landscaping, among other improvements.

Former superintendent of Centinela Valley Unified School District Jose Fernandez appears in Torrance Superior Court for arraignment charged with public corruption. Photo by Brad Graverson/SCNG/The Daily Breeze/09-01-17.

Superintendent charged with corruption

Fired Centinela Valley schools Superintendent Jose Fernandez pleaded not guilty in September to public corruption allegations that a prosecutor alleged might have bilked the district of as much as $3 million during Fernandez’s tenure.

Fernandez’s arrest and the charges against him came three years after a Pulitzer Prize winning Daily Breeze investigation into Fernandez’s exorbitant $663,000 salary and excessive perks, which included a home loan worth $910,000 with an interest rate of 2 percent, and a $750,000 life insurance policy obtained before the Centinela Valley Union High School District board could approve it.

Fernandez, 57, faces 12 felony counts, including embezzlement by a public official, misappropriation of public funds, grand theft and conflict-of-interest charges.

Court documents allege Fernandez routinely manipulated the school board and its policies to increase his pay and benefits, burying provisions to give himself “extra days pay” and the whole-life insurance policy he had already taken out for himself among thousands of pages of documents he told the board were routine policy revisions. The Centinela Valley School District has five schools.

Fernandez, who was released on $495,000 bail after his family members used their Hawthorne home as collateral, faces up to 15 years in prison if conviction. Fernandez is scheduled to appear in court Jan. 11, when a judge might set a date for a preliminary hearing, where prosecutors would present some of the evidence gathered against him.

Candles light the night during a vigil at the Manhattan Beach Pier, honoring Manhattan Beach Middle School special-education teacher Sandy Casey and Manhattan Beach Police Department records technician and Long Beach resident Rachael Parker,33, who were both killed in the mass shooting in Las Vegas, and a police officer who was wounded.<br />Manhattan Beach Calif., Wednesday, October 04, 2017.<br />( Photo by Stephen Carr / Daily Breeze / SCNG )

Las Vegas shooting claims local residents

The country’s worst mass shooting at a Las Vegas country music festival on Oct. 1 claimed 58 lives, including four residents from the South Bay. Gunman Stephen Paddock opened fire from the Mandeley Bay hotel across the street, wounding hundreds of concertgoers as star Jason Aldean performed. He then killed himself.

The local victims were:

• Torrance resident Christiana Mae Duarte, 22, a 2013 South High School graduate who earned a bachelor’s degree at the University of Arizona and worked in the marketing departments for the Los Angeles Kings and Rams.

• Sandy Casey, 35, a special-education teacher from Redondo Beach who attended the festival with a group of Manhattan Beach Unified teachers, principals and staff members.

• Rachael Parker, a 33-year-old records technician who assisted the public at the Manhattan Beach Police Department’s front counter. She had earned a bachelor’s degree in social work, completing her practical experience with Manhattan Beach’s Older Adults Program, and planned to get a master’s in the field.

• Lisa Patterson, a 46-year-old wife and mother from Lomita who was active at St. John Fisher Parish School for years, serving as PTA president while assisting her husband, Robert, at his flooring business.

Other South Bay and Harbor Area residents attended the festival, and narrowly escaped injury. Many helped the wounded and others escape. The wounded included Torrance Assistant Fire Chief Steve Treskes, Manhattan Beach police Officer Chad Swanson and dockworkers Mike Ljubic and Doug Cotter.

Cities and residents considered legal action against the Los Angeles Department of Transportation over sudden lane reductions and parking reconfigurations on Vista Del Mar that backed up traffic and irked commuters.

‘Road diet’ mess prompts ire

South Bay commuters were outraged before Memorial Day weekend when crews suddenly removed two lanes of traffic on Vista del Mar, triggering a traffic nightmare that went on for several months.

Similar “road diets” aimed at preventing pedestrian deaths were implemented on major streets in Playa del Rey, eliminating 9.4 miles of traffic lanes in all.

After Manhattan Beach leaders threatened litigation and two groups of residents filed lawsuits of their own, Los Angeles Councilman Mike Bonin announced the city would slowly undo the changes and apologized, admitting “most people outright hated” the Vista del Mar reconfiguration.

But the backpedaling wasn’t enough to spare Bonin from a recall effort launched in September. It doesn’t appear the organizers have begun gathering signatures.

Parents protest gang murder suspect

Cameron Terrell, an 18-year-old Palos Verdes High School senior, was charged in October with murder for allegedly driving the getaway car used in a gang-related homicide in South Los Angeles. Known on the streets of South Los Angeles as “White Boy,” Terrell is a reputed member of a predominantly black gang.

Police allege he drove two 17-year-old companions to 78th Street and Western Avenue. The companions got out, confronted Justin Holmes and two other men on the street, and asked for their gang affiliations. One then pulled a gun and opened fire, killing Holmes. They jumped back in the car and raced away.

After Los Angeles police arrested him and the teens, Terrell’s parents — a media consultant and an interior designer with a home in Palos Verdes Estates — posted $5 million bail to free him from jail. He went back to school, alarming parents who feared gang retaliation.

Following protests, Debra and Donald Terrell agreed to remove their son from campus for home schooling.

A preliminary hearing on the criminal charges is scheduled for Jan. 9 in Los Angeles Superior Court.

Shop owners and operators gather in front of one of the many shops at Ports O’ Call Village. (Photo by Thomas R. Cordova, Daily Breeze/SCNG)

Ports O’Call eviction notices delivered

The Port of Los Angeles’ ambitious plan to remake San Pedro’s aging Ports O’ Call Village began with the delivery of Oct. 2 eviction notices to some 15 small-shop owners.. The owners quickly found an attorney to prolong their stay, arguing that they were promised temporary spots and that any displacement wouldn’t come until later in the process.

But a court ruling late in the year made it likely they will have to leave early in 2018.

Several popular restaurants also face a forced move out come March 2018. They include Ports O’ Call Restaurant and Acapulco. The Fish Market is the only restaurant guaranteed a spot through construction and after the new attraction, the San Pedro Public Market, opens.

The Goodyear airship Wingfoot Two, a zeppelin, replaces the previous blimp and will also be based in Carson. (Photo by Scott Varley, Daily Breeze/SCNG)

Next-generation Goodyear blimp arrives to hover over South Bay skies

The new airship, called Wingfoot Two, was developed in partnership with Germany’s Zeppelin Luftschifftechnik to replace the GZ-20 model blimps, used since the 1960s at Goodyear’s three U.S. airship bases.

Unlike its balloon-like predecessor, the new Zeppelin NT has a semi-rigid structure and operates more like a helicopter than a ship, with digital controls. It can go as fast as 73 mph compared to 50 mph for the GZ-20. It’s also made with modern, lightweight materials, and is smoother, quieter and 50 feet longer than its predecessor.

A new one-of-a-kind inflatable hangar was erected at the Carson base in December to house the Zeppelin when it’s not flying over sporting games, the Academy Awards or other major events. The nine-story-tall pressurized air dock is made of two layers of polyester fabric coated in synthetic plastic.

Larry Altman has covered crime and court proceedings in Southern California since 1987. A graduate of Cal State Northridge, where he served as editor of the college newspaper, Altman has worked for the Daily Breeze since 1990. The Society of Professional Journalists named him a "Distinguished Journalist" in Los Angeles in 2006. Altman's work was featured twice on CBS' “48 Hours” and he appeared eight times with “Nancy Grace," who called him "dear." He has covered hundreds of homicides and many trials. Altman has crawled through a mausoleum to open a coffin, confronted husbands who killed their wives, wives who killed their husbands, and his coverage helped put a child molester and a murderer in prison. In his spare time, Altman is an avid Los Angeles Lakers and Dodgers fan, is the commissioner of a Fantasy Baseball league with several other current and former newspapermen, runs a real estate empire and likes to watch old movies on TCM.